What If I'm Wrong About Peak Oil?
theoildrum.com
theoildrum.com
The solutions for peak oil, global warming, etc are extremely costly. For example, the Waxman-Markey bill would impose significant indirect regulatory costs in addition to making electricity substantially more expensive (http://rollcall.com/news/36393-1.html?type=printer_friendly). For example, buying smaller, fuel-efficient cars will lead to more fatalities (http://iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4404.pdf).
The cost of being wrong leading to misallocation of resources is being poorer, less competitive globally, and deader. It may indeed be worthwhile to pursue these mandated-change initiatives anyway since being right means being relatively rich, competitive, and alive, but the downside costs are certainly real. Just because the author grows some of his own food and enjoys bicycling and thus his behavior when wrong looks very much like his behavior when right doesn't mean that he and everyone else wouldn't be bearing the diffuse costs of being expensively wrong.
Actually, the "solutions" aren't aimed at global warming, etc. Yes, AGW and the like are used to justify them, but look at what they actually do and ask "Is this an effective solution?" In the few cases where the proposal actually has some relevance to the problem, ask "Is this solution competitive with reasonable alternatives?"
When the peak oil, global warming, etc folk start proposing things that are actually rational solutions to the supposed problems instead of power-grabs, I'll take them seriously.
And no, "something is better than nothing" is not true. Something can easily be worse than nothing. And, if that's the standard, they can't object to my favorite something, virgin sacrifices.
Peak Oil is a fairly important reason why I continue to live here despite frozen winters and cool summer evenings.
From an investment perspective, I'm essentially all-in betting on Peak Oil. Job, house, golf membership, cash investments, all of this is contingent on the continued health of the oil and gas business.
The only question about Peak Oil is when, not if. It may have already happened. Price-speculation in 2008 aside, the average cost of a barrel of oil is going up. The price of natural gas has not gone anywhere, which is likely because of shale-gas production coming online in the US. They're not making more oil. . . .
And even though no more dinosaur juice is being made (nobody seems to think the abiogenic theory is worth anything) we certainly could have the use of more oil: if the right Fischer Tropsch catalyst is found and/or if we figure out how to drill deeper and/or get more out of the existing fields.
$15K for a car that seats two, gets 38 MPG, and will vanish into a singularity in the event of a crash is anything but smart.